Safe and Sound

After 36 hours of travel, 20 of it spent in the air, I've made it to Hanoi. The house I'm in is more of a hostel setup, and the bathroom accommodations are definitely not what I'm used to. Also it is blazing hot. I felt much better after a shower, but now that my hair is dry and I've moved at all I'm starting to feel a bit overheated again. Hopefully I get used to this and don't die. My room is currently shared with two other girls - and as I suspected, we come from a variety of international volunteer organizations. In fact, I'm the only UBELONG volunteer at my house. The people here are from all over the world - some for just a few weeks, others for two or more months, like me. Some people who have or will be here for a while have their own rooms. I guess that would be nice, but I have no issues with a communal room. My only complaint is that I have a top bunk on the top floor of the building. which of course doesn't have a/c. And everyone else has mosquito nets... so I should probably get one. I wish that had been on the list of things I would want/need... I could probably have found something at a sports store back home.

My orientation starts tomorrow, so I still don't know much about my work. All I've seen so far is the airport, my house, and the road in between. It's a different world. The drivers are crazy - there are lines painted on the roads but they seem to be at best loosely adhered to. And stoplights are apparently only strictly adhered to in the presence of a police officer. Turn signals are, of course, completely optional, and there is absolutely no right of way law, or at least none that matters in the slightest. If you want to turn across traffic, you just go for it. Stick your nose out and push your way across until you're so much in everyone's way that they have to yield to you.

The timezone here is 14 hrs ahead of CA, so I really am on the opposite side of the world. The foliage is beautiful, but there is clearly a lot of poverty. Even the humblest of houses in the US would be a major luxury here. I'm eager to get out and experience the city itself but I'm not comfortable leaving the house until I know where I am, so I'm just going to stay around here for tonight. Maybe if some of the others in the house want to go out tonight and it's not far, I'll join them. I want to get to know the people I'll be living with.

I'll post pictures when I have them.

Love,

Jen